The bulk of the pilot work done in Q4 was in three categories:

On-board Unit Assembly and Installation

The OBU unit performs a number of functions essential to the success of the pilot including:

captures data from the vehicle

sends data across the mobile network to city-hosted server

receives data back from the city-hosted servers

displays actionable messages to the driver in the vehicle.

During Q4, an additional three OBUs were installed in City of Las Vegas vehicles and one in a private vehicle of the UNLV representative to the project. These OBUs contained firmware updates introduced in Q3.

on road testing and trouble shooting

During Q3, the project team concluded that the OBUs had sensitivity to heat and so heat sinks were installed on the V2X prototype boards to alleviate the problem. This workaround wasn’t 100% effective, but did help with the heat problems.

As the heat declined in Las Vegas, an additional problem of maintaining consistent GPS and wireless connectivity was identified. At of the end of Q4, these problems were still not fully diagnosed but would likely require a reworking of the prototype V2X boards. This fix was deemed out of scope of the project, so the OBUs in the field were used “as is”.

Definition and Validation of Problem Statements 3

While problem statements 1 and 2 were functional though hampered by the above mentioned connectivity problems, the data needs for problem statement 3 (approaching active bus stop) were discussed. RTC/FAST identified the data sources for both the bus stops themselves and for a dynamic feed for the actual bus locations. Hortonworks validated the data sources but as of the end of Q4, the scripting necessary to enable the alerts had not been completed.

Due to the hardware problems, it was decided that problem statements 3 and 4 would be postponed to a second phase of the project, which is currently under discussion.

End of Quarter Status:

Hardware/On-board Unit: The prototype V2X board was proven to be the weakness in the overall performance of the OBU. This is not surprising since the board manages the collection, sending and receiving of all data from multiple sources. The lack of reliable connectivity to GPS and to the mobile network was a main contributor to the project delays and limited success.

Servers/Data: The servers running the GENIVI RVI and Hortonworks data services seemed to be working consistently and effectively. When a vehicle had connectivity and was able to communicate GPS location, the alerts flowed consistently showing that the data exchange, comparison to city data, and alerting systems all worked as expected. Scripting for problem statement 3 remains an undone task for a future project.

Communications: The project was presented at the GENIVI All Member Meeting in Seoul, South Korea and in other contexts. The pilot will be part of the Las Vegas booth presence at the CES2018 Smart City exposition located in the Westgate hotel on January 9-11, 2018.

Executive: The Executive Subcommittee is discussing whether the project should continue into 2018. Given the likely reworking of the V2X board, this may be out of scope and additional projects around data collection and exchange may take priority.